My friend (bro-friend) Sandro introduced a new term to me tonight that is simply too good not to be shared. To be honest, I'm pretty sure Sandro doesn't read the blog, so I was going to take credit for this brilliance, but then I realized that other mutual friends would surely have alerted him to my joke stealing, thereby sending my bro-love into the arms of a another bromance. And that simply will not do.

This gem popped up in my inbox recently.

So I have to make a blog confession.  I got caught up in the numbers game.  I'd been tracking my entries (this is #100) and followers (i lost my first follower today--im sure i deserved it *whips himself*), that I lost sight of what this blog is about.  Namely, the writing (ok ok, it's about me).  I've been over-analyzing what to say to make this entry special and really i've been pressing.

So I'll start with this.  Oftentimes, especially when you are reading someone's scrawlings about life the universe and everything, you create a mental perception of that person as someone cool as a cucumber and above petty things like determining his daily self-worth based on how many followers he has.   I am not too cool for school.  I am that petty.  Every time I get a new follower, especially one that I don't see on a daily basis, I am literally honored.  Touched.  When you guys leave comments, I have mini-orgasms.  I feel lucky to have people interested in reading my cranial concoctions.  So, if you're a person who reads but hasn't clicked the "Follow" button over there on the right yet--now's the time.  Remember, the number of followers I have lets me know how good a person I am.

A positive side effect of this blog has been that those people who do know me personally get a chance to still feel connected with what's going on with me, even if we don't get to talk as much as we'd like.  And to these close friends i say, "dudes, why the fuck aren't you already following me!"  And I love you.

And lastly, I feel the need to end my 100th with what's really important to me in the end.  I have been in the unfortunate circumstance of comforting more than one friend this week on the loss of loved ones (fathers and brothers).  Awful.  Also, in juxtaposition, today I read a news article about two sisters, ages 84 and 87, who are suing each other over a 2005 $500,000 lottery ticket.  One sister claims that they had an agreement to share their gambling winnings, while the other said that they had a falling out shortly before the ticket was purchased (don't they always), and it had negated their arraignment.  I'm not going to get into who I think is right because the only thing I feel is that both sister's are fucking idiots.  They are spending their last time on Earth fighting their family in court over green paper, instead of actually living their life.  They have prioritized money over their own lives, and that is about as sad a reality as I can concoct.  If I were the judge in that trial (and let's all be thankful im not), my opening statement would go something like this, "Listen to me you old bitches.  That's right I said bitches.  I want to get your attention.  This lawsuit is dismissed on the grounds of it being absolutely retarded (sorry for the bad word).  It is literally retarding your ability to live your lives.  You are sitting on those wood benches in front of me fading away in this courtroom.  That's idiotic.  Leave.  You've got better things to do."  Granted I'm not sure there are any precedents to support my ruling.  But I can live with that.

What I'm trying to say here is that there is nothing so valuable as the time we are given to live and love. As corny as it may seem, in the end, it is the ultimate truth.  We live on through those we've touched, and our opportunity to imprint ourselves on this world is never guaranteed past the present.  So we've got to make the most of it.  I've never regretted telling those I care about how much they mean to me, and i highly recommend making a habit of it.  I may be writing a blog filled bathroom humor & locker-room characters, but if I were to go tomorrow, my hope is that you would smile and laugh at this blog in my memory--as you read, and reread, upon my untimely demise.

The title of this blog post comes from one of my all-time favorite movies Mall Rats.   I could explain it, but you should just watch the movie (or watch it again if need be).

But, while i am short on time, i wanted to throw this out there.  I realize now that I rushed my entry into the blogging world.  I made some rookie mistakes and I'm not totally sure how to fix them.

First, the url for my blog is mattitiyahu.blogspot.com.  Which is, of course, my name + the hosting site.  It was only later that I realized that bloggers generally try to think up witty, easy to remember blog addresses that are not so narcissistically self-involved.   For example, one of my blog mentors Una aka "The Sassy Curmudgeon's" blog address is www.volcanicensemble.blogspot.com/.  Considering she does the Project Runway Recaps for HuffPo, this seems both fitting and witty.  Good on yah Una.   I, it seems, have stuck myself with an address both unoriginal ("Wow, look guys, his address is actually his name!") and hard to spell (it has been misspelled by family members in the past, so i know this to be true).  I'm thinking of changing it to www.awesomefacesandwich.com.  Thoughts?  Is that even possible?

Second, like "Sassy" Una or my reader "the flabby ninja" (awesome name), most bloggers have handles.  Like truck drivers, they make up cool names that both give a small bit of insight into their character and hide their true identity from the world.  It is essentially the first step to becoming the superhero we all want to be.  I have no handle.  I am all spout (yes, that's a "I'm a little teapot" reference).  Readers, you gotta help me here.  Do I need one?  Or should I remain "Mattitiyahu"  like "Madonna."  I really didn't know that there would be so many decisions to be made just by starting a blog.  Maybe that's why i f'd it up so thoroughly.

I'll leave you with an expression that both sums up my feelings RE: f'ing up titles and handles, and is useful for many situations throughout life.  It's the Japanese expression: Sho ga nai (Pronounced: Show-gah-nigh [rhymes with lie]).  Loosely translated it means, "It can't be helped."  It is an expression that signifies that things that have happened have happened, and beating oneself up over it after the fact really does no one any good.  Maybe that should be my handle?

So I was originally going to call this entry "A Pound for your Thoughts," but I couldn't resist the Jay-Z reference.  Also, seeing as England HAS pennies, I was not too heartbroken to discard an inaccurate pun.  What a stickler am I.

Let's take my morning brain for a spin.

First.  Since arriving in Ol' England, it has been sunny 4 days in a row.  This is contrary to the predicted forecast that i checked on the inter-web prior to my departure.  When I typed in London, it returned more "rain" icons then i have ever seen.  A few drops even flew out of my computer and hit me in the face.  Rain everywhere.  My computer screen physically got cloudy.  But in actuality, in the words of Blind Melon (that's another band name mom & dad), there is No Rain.  What this says to me is that weather websites in the states just post "rain" as the forecast for England every day, figuring that percentage-wise, they will end up being correct more than incorrect.  Essentially they are playing rain roulette.   In an ironic turn of events, the day after I left New England for Old, the storms came and flooded the entire east coast of the states.

Second.  The thing I have learned the most about myself during this trip is that I am head over heals addicted to the internet.  To the point that not having it around makes me twichily uncomfortable.  As an avid mini iPad user (that's what i've decided to call my iPhone now), i've grown alarmingly used to having the internet all around me--like air.  It is the constant reassurance of friends, family, facts, and fun at my fingertips (that's called alliteration bitches).  It's also like cigarettes for non-smokers.  Something to do when you are standing there doing nothing.  Now I realize that this issue is being confounded with my simultaneous lack of cell phone use, but i have still surprised myself at how jittery not being able to look up stupid shit like how many seasons of Arrested Development (its a t.v. show m & d) there are.  And here is the thing.  Remember that you heard this here first. While there currently is no rehab or sympathy for internet-addicted individuals (certainly not close to the level of sex addiction), there will be.  It's coming.  I'm not sure what form this rehabilitation will take, but i'm pretty sure that they will popularize the phrase "un-plug."  As in, "Here and Shady Meadows Internet Rehab, we teach our members (they always use euphemisms like 'members') how to un-plug from their daily grind and re-appreciate the beauty all around them."  This will happen in the next 10 years--most likely right after they start implanting iPhone-like devices into our forearms.

Third.  There really is something special about seeing familiar faces in unfamiliar places (and not just because it rhymes).  Last night, Matt and I were not in a great mood.  Why that is true is not important.  But, we decided to hit up a bar that we had previously planned on going to, on the off chance that my peeps from our local bar (The Moan and Dove -- the best bar in America in my opinion--go to it if you are EVER in the area!!!--and let me know since I will meet you there) would stop by on their beer tour through Europe.  Somehow, with absolutely minimal communication, the whole Amherst, MA gang rolled in shortly after our first (amazing) cask beer.  The merriment commenced.  Seeing local friends in foreign lands is like being hugged the entire time you are together.  It's hard to describe, but something about sharing a common home base and history in a shared out-of-your-comfort-zone situation is tremendously bonding.  Bad moods no more, Matt and I began our voyage home, as we left our American beer compatriots to continue their voyage to beer Meccas.

Lastly, I will end this post, with a flashback.

Matt and I have been friends for a long while.  We have spent countless hours trapped together in various planes, cars, stadiums, boats, reefs, bungee cords, parachutes, beds, and drug-induced forrest wanderings.  On one such occasion, we were driving out of a Met's game in Queens New York when I realized that I needed to pee (not from drinking beer at the game of course ;)).  This led to a conversation in which Matt and I standardized a 1-10 scale which related to how badly one needs to go to the bathroom (number 1).  We like to do shit like this.  We have scales for many many things.  I recommend it.  What I like best about our scale is that as the numbers increase, they do not do so in a consistent manner.  For example.  The amount of increase in "need to pee" going from 5-6 is NOT the same as the amount of increase between 7-8.  Not even close.  For those of you stats geek, this is kind of like a log function increase.  So as the scale increases, the immediacy of pee inadvertently dripping out of you increases in multiples.  So where the difference from 5-6 signifies a move toward urgency of need, the increase from 7-8 is more an indication that when you get to 8.5 you WILL pee in pretty much any location--independent of appropriateness.  To give you some idea of a 9, a 9 means you will quite possibly pee in a populated subway/tube car.  On this particular aforementioned trip in Queens, we were stuck in traffic when I hit an 8.5 for only the 2nd time in my life (the other time i eventually got up to a 9, which caused me to jump off a bus in the middle of nowhere in Israel [where i was sitting {by happenstance} next to my HUGE kibbutz-friend Israeli army-girl crush] in order to relieve myself in the desert and then hitchhike the rest of the way to my destination--this is serious stuff folks).  At 8.5, I jumped out of Matt's car, ran a few yards away from the road, and just went for it.  Sweet sweet relief.

I tell you all this because the scale was renewed last night on our ride home from the bar.  While i didn't make it to 8.5, I DID make it to an 8 getting off the tube, which was enough to have us take a detour on our short walk home in order to pee on the brick wall in front of someone's building.  I'm not proud of it, grant you, but man o man did i enjoy it.

*the lack of pictures at the moment has to do with internet issues.  So you'll have to use your imaginations for a few days.

Have you guys missed me as much as I've missed you?
I hope so.  Cause I'm an attention whore.

I will begin with a quick story from this morning.  I went with my friend Matt (yes, all of my friends have the same name as me, it's how I know they're mine) to his work at the London School of Hyper-color Tropical Fish and Infectious Dysentery (no no, its the School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine [much better]).  This means i woke up at 7:30am today, which means I'm exhausted (i don't get up "in the 7's" at home).  Suffice to say, coffee was non-negociable.  Being that my gf works at the local coffee shop back home and a significant portion of my friends work in and around the coffee profession, I have a better than working knowledge of this particular substance.  Because of this, after ordering a double espresso at the quaint coffee shop across from the school, I was shocked when the server almost immediately handed me a cup that was a little more than half full of espresso.  It was certainly piping hot, but both the volume and the speed of processing were disconcerting.  Usually it takes about 30 sec. to pull a double shot.  Was this magic coffee?  Did he give me the leftovers from all the previous shots?  I'm not sure, but I suspect something was lost in the American to English translation.  And how big are their shots here?  In truth, you should drink your shot shortly after it's pulled (at nicer places, espresso to go is frowned upon [but putting it over ice is even worse fyi]).  With the amount of coffee in my cup, and my inability not to finish any food or drink i'm given, it was difficult to get all the brown gold down my gullet in the minute or so I had in the shop.

The Moral of this Story: London has magic volumous coffee beans.  Or, coffeeshops hate Americans and give them hot mess leftovers.  Take your pick.

I have just completed my first weekend in London ever and I am flush with over-generalizations and mis-categorizations to share and perpetuate.  Let's get right to it.  Hell, let's even make a list of them just for the hell of it.

1.  London is not an attractive city. People-wise.  Now I know this may sound harsh off the bat, but attractiveness is actually more of an objective measure (on the whole) than one might think.  In psych. research, you can get fairly reliable measures of what we conceptualize as subjective attractiveness.  And these people don't have it.  The men: Pasty, lanky, with swatches of hair placed Alfalfa-like atop their heads.  The women: Also pale, rotund, and with a brazen lack of modesty.  I'm not sure if it is a statement of liberation or bad taste, but I've seen more spandex bottoms and utter-like exposed cleavage then my brain can handle.  But, with the caveat that I hate to perpetuate a stereotype, I really do believe that the awful state of the dental work and hygiene probably does the most to accentuate the lack of attractive Brits (their teeth are second only to the gnarled madness of Japanese "dentistry").  Without getting too "Hitler's pure race," the British look like Scandinavians who have had all the strength-juice squeezed out of them.  I am pretty sure the reason the drinking culture is so prevalent here is to ensure the propagation of the country.  Cause honestly, if you were sober, you probably wouldn't wanta get down with most of the people in the pubs.

2.  i think I better go with a positive after how harsh #1 came out.  In my opinion, London's biggest draw is it's multicultural nature.  While NYC and America claim to be melting pots, London really has the stew cooked right.  Walking around you hear multiple languages interwoven into the fabric of passing conversations.  No heads jerk around (besides mine) at the utterance of a foreign language, as the accessibility and fluidity of the EU allows all Europeans to feel welcome in the UK.

3.  I find the smells of Britain to be incredibly distinct.  And it's not a good or bad distinct, but rather very different from what we consider the perfumes of America.  My friend's shower gel was a prime example of such a smell, and I spent a good amount of time (in the shower mostly) trying to figure out how I could describe its "nose."  Matt (my friend, not me in the 3rd person) suggested that there is a lot of lavender in things, and that smells like the grandmothers of Americans, thus its distinctiveness.  That rang true in a way, but i knew there was something else.  And this morning it came to me.  The smell that the Brits love is exactly the same as the Jewish Spice Box my synagogue used on Shabbat growing up.  This box is filled with essentially a mix of potpourri and cinnamon and is supposed to remind us of the sweetness of the weekly holiday.  Not in England.  In England, this smell is used for soap, deodorant, perfume, Fabreeze (UK version) etc.  In sum, England smells like my hometown's Torah.  Go figure.

4.  London is old.  In the best possible way.  Everything is teeming with history and scaffolding.  It produces that cobblestone village feel, even in the big city.  Quite a feat.  I would probably be able to say more about this if my last European history class wasn't 16 years in my rear-view mirror.

5.  I would be remiss not to comment on the bathrooms (it's kinda my thing now).  Generally, compared to the other toilets of the world, England is fairly similar to the USA.  The main difference being that the water level in the toilet is much much lower.  The trade off here is that while you save water you also get a mess stuck to the walls of the inner basin.  Tough call.  

I'm all typed out for now.  We'll do this again soon.

I've been blogging at a pretty fantastic rate recently, and I feel that, for those of you who have been so kind as to read my scrawl, i should give a little note about the upcoming week.  Today I leave for Boston (the big city) and then to England for a week to visit an old college buddy who can never seem to stay domestic.  As such, my blogs may be a bit sporadic ("i hope not sporadically") and less frequent.  For those of you disappointed by this prospect, please remember that the only way for me to continue producing tales of such unabashed silliness, is to go outside and live this ridiculousness first.  I aim to bring back more tales of wonder from across the pond.

I am also (admittedly) treading water a bit until my 99th and 100th posts (this is #95 i believe).  I'm fairly sure how I want this to play out, so im reserving some greatness for those major blog-complishments.

Anything that simply can't be missed in London?  (besides the rain?)  let me know in the comments!

So I kinda lost it today.  It's the small things that piss me off.  I'm working on it.   But they kicked us out of the pool 10 minutes early today with the explanation that the diving coach needed the pool.  But the diving coach wasn't THERE!  I was not the only one who felt this was just another example of the athletic center charging the swimmers super high fees while not giving us any new benefits (THEY TOOK OUR SOAP!) and generally just not giving a shit about us because they know that they have the only business in town when it comes to pools.

So how did I release this aggression towards the man?  Well do you remember the "non-denominational" door-mat our landlords provided us with back in December?  It's still there.  In front of our doorstep.  In March.

I just flashed with rage.  I saw red and the next thing i know i'm tossing the Joy encrusted foot gunk collector across the porch and neatly next to their matching "Joy" mat.   Don't piss me off man.  I'm a wildman.

It still felt good though.  It still felt good.

I'm having a crisis folks.  I have an epic blog that has been formulating in my head for the past 4 days or so.  But I am just not in the right mood to write it yet.  So once again I will defer to my "feelings" (pussy), and elaborate on why I'm such a grump McStinkface.

When I was a kid, we're talking like little-league baseball-aged (i'm not sure what that is in "cricket" years), I used to absolutely love the shit out of ice cream. Again, this alone isn't ground breaking, but you'll understand it's importance in a bit.  There was one soft serve place in particular named Jilly's (Gilly's? I obviously paid more attention to the product than the vendor--priorities) where I would try to con cheat or cajole someone to take me numerous times a week. I think the fact that I was a scrawny little 70 pound toothpick with arms helped my cause in getting repeat visits.  The "Flurry," which contained both soft serve ice-cream AND 2 toppings all blended together, was the grand prize.  When I hit a triple (or should I say my one triple) in a baseball game, I got a Flurry.  If I had a Flurry in my hand, something had gone right for me.  I miss Flurry's so bad.

This love affair continued without interruption til about my sophomore or junior year in high school, when I would start to get headaches after ice-cream or cereal.  While annoying, I was so deeply in love with my dairy queen (hehe) that these headaches were ignorable.  But, being that Jilly's had plenty of variety, I switched to frozen yogurt, and the headaches went away.  Problem solved.  Until senior year when the headaches came back with their friend "doubled-over stomach cramps."  Any of you ladies who have had a good ol bout of period cramps can support me when I say that severe cramps can REALLY ruin your day.  The difference, however, between my cramps and lady cramps, is that mine was followed with 3 hours of toilet time.  Explosive toilet time.  Toilet time that left its 'exit' resembling a dog's chew toy.  Not cool.  Bur I ignored it (I really friggin loved ice cream).  It happened again.  I ignored it again.  I distinctly remember that the 3rd time this fiasco unleashed from my body as the time that broke me.  We had rented a movie and I missed the entire thing upstairs on the shitter.

I'm lactose intolerant folks.  A Lactard.  And it's not going away.  It was only late in my college career that this affliction affected enough rich people that they made a drug (Lactaid) to help us lactards digest dairy like you normal folks.  And for the past decade or so, as long as I moderate my intake, use the pills, and avoid aged cheeses (they are more lactose-rich), i've been fine.  Long story short, gas I can handle.
hilarious comic from t-shirthumor.com


For whatever reason, my body's changing again (I feel like one of those books for 13-year-olds. "Why is my body changing mommy?").  The last few times I ate cheese that I probably shouldn't have (last night it was fresh mozzarella), my body has been severely reprimanding me.  At least that's how it feels.  It starts about an hour after eating with a searing pain in my side.  This pain-baby grows and grows until its kicking in my entire lower chest and stomach area.  And there it boils.  The middle of my body locks up in pain just to remind me how stupid it was to eat a fucking panini with mozzarella when I know better.  It's like having an internal school marm (sic) just giving you "the look" for hours on end.  And what's so horrific about this time is that while I am in a great deal of pain, that pain is not pushing up nor down.  It's sitting there.  It's teaching me a lesson.

Four hours after that (so if I ate dinner at, let's say 8, it's now 1am) the pain gets so great that I must release.  And, since I can't stick a finger up my butt and make myself poop, it's coming out the other way.  And it does.  For an hour. Maybe an hour and a half.  I crawlled into bed around 2:30am still doubled over in pain, but drugged up enough to pass out by 3.
creepiest milk mustache ive ever seen.  I have know idea who "Bert" is.  But he will haunt me dreams.


Today my stomach has been talking to me all day.  A growl here, a rumble there.  While talking to the participants in our lab study today, it gave out such a moan that it sounded like I had farted while giving instructions.  Awesome.  Mature.  Professional.  I'm thinking of getting my stomach-stapled as retribution.  I need to show my stomach whose boss around here (tony danza?).  I fear, this plan may be misguided.  I will give it a bit more thought.

More generally, I'm just disappointed that it had to come to this.  The shits made sense to me as a consequence of my lack(tose)adaisical-ness.  Vomiting?  That's just inappropriate amounts of convulsing.  "Slow your roll!," my insides.  Chillax.  Settle down.  Seriously man, settle down.  I can't take much more of this.

The more I live (and i've been living at a pretty constant clip now for some time), the more I think that perhaps Monet really had a grasp of not only the art world, but the psychology of the world.  Let's start with the basics: Claude Monet is a famous (deceased) artist who is considered the father of French impressionism.  An example of his work:

Ok, this is a public service announcement.  If you get a SwimMan personal underwater music playing device, and Eminem comes on playing, "I'm the slim shady, no i'm the slim shady, all you other slim shady's are just imitate'n."  DO NOT SING ALONG.  It does not work out well for you.  While your iPod nano may be water-proofed from the inside out, your lungs are not.  There is nothing funny about a swimmer gulping water seemingly out of nowhere for trying to rap while swimming.  Picture it.  Wait a minute.  It IS that funny.

Second.  We have gotten to the point in T.V. history that when famous people are being announced, their names are preceded by "the real."  For example, tonight on "the Marriage Ref," the announcer (whose name i have not yet learned.  Poppa? Poopa? Pumba?) thanked "the real David Blaine" (who, staying true to his strict training regimen for the douchebag of the millenium contest, was eating fast food in a plexiglass case for no reason).  Has is come to this.  We are betrayed and misled so much that we must now introduce the presence of a person with the prompt that that person is, in fact, that person. I'm just saying.

And lastly.  I know by now that you guys probably think that I spend a good amount of my days roaming locker rooms for funny stuff to write about.  But I don't.  Just one locker room.  And this stuff is literally plastered on the walls.  Here is the absolute GEM of a sign that now hangs on the men's locker room shower wall.
(any female spies out there want to tell me if this is happening over in the lady's camp as well?)


First let me point out that this sign is on the outside wall of the shower, far from the nozzles themselves. That said, this sign is drenched.  I have no explanation for it's drenching except that it was someone's reaction to them removing all the soap dispensers in the shower room!!! Let's break this down.

1) What the fuck is soft soap?  For that matter, what is hard soap.  I've heard of bar soap and liquid soap, but never soft.  Because really, the pink barely-an-excuse-for-soap that they were providing, was not soft.  I would not want to pet it.  I may want to rub my face against it, but it would be purely functional.  It's like calling methane "soft gas."  Ok, no it's not, but I'm going to start calling farts "soft gas" from now on cause i think that's hilarious.

2) Assuming that "soft soap" referred to the liquid soap previously provided, how can throwing it on the walls be a "severe safety issue."  Throwing soap on the floor?  I get that.  That's definitely dangerous.  That said, the floor of the shower room is designed specifically for the purpose of collecting that clearing water and soap.  And, I'm not sure where the unnamed officials who revoked our soap privileges think the soap provided is GOING to end up.  But,it's a shower.  It's all going on the floor.  It's the only place it CAN go.  I would go so far as to say it's designed specifically too end up on the floor.  But I digress.  Back to the soap on the walls.  Again, is this protecting those who use the shower room as a place to get their lean on as they saunter up to other shower users.  Because I'm ok with those guys being deterred.  The shower room is a no 'get your lean on' zone (unless it is a specifically designated 'get your lean on' shower room, in which case, go friggin crazy guys), period.  I'm just imagining this being the punishment for some dick-wad who was attempting the one-hand-against-the-wall--head propped to the side--casual BBQ invite on a dude whose mid-suddsing, and his hand slipped on some errant soft soap (?)  and he fell and got embarrassed and that boiled into anger, that got shouted back to some administrator, who then took all the soap out of the shower.  Soap on the walls a severe safety issue?  Verdict: Not Guilty.

3) So we are talking about severe safety issues huh.  And your thinking a few soap fights (right?  I can't imagine what else this could be referring to [though I'm sure humanity will not let me down with it's true explanation--expect the unexpected]) are a larger health risk than a sizable number of sweaty, uncleaned men, post-workout, sharing a gym.  "Hello green fungus growing on these lockers and into my lungs. I'm sure glad there is no soap on the shower room floor to slip on.  I might get hurt."  (And how, in god's name, would I clean up all this split soap?  I mean, I'd need a ton of water.)  Which brings me to my final point.

4) This is not middle school.  We do not revoke privileges at state-run public school gyms.  After increasing my fee (as an employee) by over %210, the least you can do is leave the god damn cheap soap in the showers so I can wash the chlorine off me.  What lesson are you teaching?  And who are you teaching it too?  This is no longer the main gym that the undergrads use, so mostly it's just athletes (who you would think they would cater to), grad students, and faculty.  Do you want us to all get together and collaborate on an apology letter and sign it?  Would that re-gain your faith and trust in us enough to once again provide us with soap?  It's SOAP!!! Not candy or liquor.  When I was growing up (oh yah, I said it), soap was a punishment.  You tried your damnedest to avoid the soap.  Oh how times have changed.



P.S.  On a personal note, one of my fellow graduate-school (sufferers) friends, Becky, got a real big-girl job today--before she's even finished her Ph.D. work.  It's the dream, and she's living it.  As I told her, we don't go to graduate school to get a Ph.D., we go to graduate school to get a job that REQUIRES a Ph.D.  And she did it.  Congrats!

Now I'm not about to write a midday post suggesting that pot should be legalized.  That's just not me (that's more of a late night argument).  But one thing that I consistently despise is hypocrisy (especially  my own).  And so, with that, I give you the world's best and breifest argument for why either pot should be as legal as alcohol, or alcohol should be as illegal as pot.

Picture me in a room with a bunch of old white guys, I mean a legislature, making this argument:

Me:  Gentlemen and Lady, I have to ask you one simple question about the proposed bill to keep pot illegal.  Which of you is the MOST against pot legalization.  (I picture one of the older white guys raising his hand--let's call him Mr. White).  Mr White, I want you to imagine this situation.  You are paraplegic.  You have no arms and legs and you go out for a night on the town with two of your able bodied friends. Throughout the course of the night, one of your friends, gets super drunk.  Not fall down illiterate drunk, but he's been drinking all night.  Your other friend has been smoking pot all night.  He's lit up joints at fairly constant intervals all night and is, considering the red in his eyes, stoned.

Here's the dilemma.  No cell reception, the three of you need to get home.  You, have no arms or legs.  One friend's drunk, one's stoned.  You have to decide who drives.   Who are you going to choose.

You are damn right you are going to choose the stoned guy over the drunk guy every time.  Well, if you care about living you will.  Pot has a less deleterious effect on driving (the cause of many drug deaths), it doesn't make people violent (well--violently lazy perhaps), and I have yet to see someone O.D. on pot (while stomach pumping is like the training wheels of E.R. medicine).  The worst thing I've heard someone do on pot, was one off-duty police officer calling 911 after eating pot brownies, causing him and his wife to trip so hard that they thought that he and his wife were dying (or at least in some kind of alternate reality where he wanted the police operator to verify the sports scores on T.V. to assure him that he was living in "real time").  But that was super funny.  (worth a watch.)

Again, I'm not saying that pot should be legal.  All i'm saying is that given the side by side comparison with alcohol, our laws are profoundly out of whack.  And that annoys me.

All couples go through ebbs and flows, fleeting interests that come and go naturally throughout your life together. For example, for a few years in the 90's, my parents took up square dancing.  I remember them putting on their cute little outfits and these name-tags with tiny plastic badges hanging off them.  The name tags were not unlike those worn by fast food employees, and the badges were dime-sized and hung from metal loops on the bottom of the name-tag.  Oh, I forgot.  The badges were awarded for different square dancing accomplishments earned throughout your time with the group.  Essentially Boy Scout badges for square dancing adults.  Amazing!  And while they may deny it now, I remember my parents really enjoying it.  I don't know if the other people there smelled, or if they finally looked in the mirror and saw all that plaid, but eventually Mom and Dad stopped going.  It's normal.  It happens.

Anyways.  The point of all this is that my girlfriend and I are in what can only be termed a "Wii Mario Kart" phase, and I love it.  Last weekend one of my best friends from college came to visit, and as he opened my front door, he entered to see me standing scantily clad, water pipe in hand, while Erin was celebrating a first place Wii Kart victory.  He announced, "I don't think I could have entered to a more awesome scene."  I have to agree with him.  It was badass.

And mercifully, Wii is family oriented enough that it has a "Team Competition" mode that allows my girlfriend and I to play on the same team (we always go Blue Team, cause fuck those Red Team bastards).  We cheer for each other and high-five when we go 1st/ 2nd on Delfino Square (it's one of the course's names, if you don't know what I'm talking about it just means that you probably had friends in high school).  It's great fun.

But I don't kid myself, I know that her interest won't stay on the greatness of video games forever.  The trick is to enjoy it while it lasts.  And as I sit here writing this entry, she is celebrating the unlocking of new race courses for her character.  It's the bomb, yo.   And I don't dwell on how playing video games at night wearing our peep-colored robes (mine's blue, her's pink) will look 15 years from now (cause it'll still be awesome).  The same way I'm sure my parents don't think of the plaid jumpsuits, but rather the fun they had together.

How amazing is this picture.  I feel like some coloring book KNEW I was going to write this piece!